ABSTRACT
This chapter examines issues affecting the acceptance of subjective difference and how such difference can work to the benefit of third wave feminist and transgender factions. Social groups will often implement social cleansing to police any subjective variance in their midst, by using ridicule, violence or by subtly denying access to social environments such as community, family, work and leisure. Just as immigrants and refugees are often lumped together in one 'dangerous outsider' category, so is often the case for gender variant people. Some feminist and womanist commentators have identified maternal relations as an attribute of a utopian third wave feminism. The main way of breaking down gendered stereotypes is to interact with people to learn about their individuality, and this can be done via the dialogic methods of semanalysis and ethics of care. Genre and genealogy could form an appropriate template for this endeavour, rather than relying on deterministic physical and psychological frameworks and current ideas of aetiology.
